Your Baby's First Three Years Are Crucial for Their Future
Your baby’s first three years are crucial for their future. The experiences they have during this time are vital for their future development. As for you, it’s obvious that you’ll remember the first few days after giving birth because of the exhaustion you feel. However, you’ll also remember those times because of all the changes the arrival of a new baby brings.
During the first few months of their lives, your job is to do everything you can to care for your child. You feed them every time they’re hungry, you take care of them, you cuddle them, you watch over them at all times. You do all of this as a new parent, even if that means living with some pretty scary dark circles under your eyes.
As a parent, doing all of those things for your newborn baby is instinctive (nature is very wise). You automatically know how important your baby’s first few days are. But, did you know that their first three years (approximately 1000 days) are crucial for their future? Do you want to know why? Keep reading.
Your baby’s first three years are crucial for their future
UNICEF conducted some studies that provide important data on all this. Your baby’s first three years are decisive and will impact their future forever.
During these early years, your baby will form the mental abilities that they’ll have as adults. After those first three years, your little one’s no longer a baby and they’ll reach a higher level of development, growth, and maturation.
Their development in those first three years mainly affects their cognitive, personal, and emotional development. What are the most important areas of development during this time? Let’s find out.
The most important areas of development during your baby’s first three years
Throughout your child’s first three years of life, there are very important areas of development. Let’s take a look at them.
Language
During the first few years of your child’s life, they’ll begin to assimilate and decode language. However, a child can’t perfect a language in just three years. It’s complicated. But, babies are capable of learning more than one language, even several at a time. These children are bilingual or multilingual.
At this point in their lives, it’s easier to learn languages since they’re constantly listening to two or more languages. This encourages them to acquire any language they’re exposed to. However, this is only possible if parents talk to their children a lot and their little ones see how their mouths and lips move when they speak. That way, they can learn to articulate words.
By the time your child is about 6 months, they’ll know a lot of words and will start to repeat individual syllables. Then, they’ll later gradually increase their vocabulary. At three years old, they’ll already be able to have conversations with adults. However, their language will continue to improve until they’re around 6-7 years old.
Social and communication skills
It’s important to stimulate your child’s social skills from a young age. The only way to do that is to ensure they interact with other people. Children learn by living and interacting with others during their first years of life. Doing so gives them the tools and resources they’ll need for their future relationships.
Cognitive
The brain doubles in size during the first three years of life. During this time, there’s a lot of brain activity and development. Your child will start to know and relate to basic concepts. In addition to a healthy diet, all the experiences they have during this stage will have a large impact on their development.
Emotional
Correct emotional development in children will depend on whether or not they have a close family bond with those around them. This will help your little one develop a strong personality, confidence, and good self-esteem. Their personality will start to develop during their first three years.
Your baby will start to know who they are and how important they are to those around them because of the bond they have with their parents. The UNICEF study we previously mentioned states the important role the affective bond plays in development. The more affection a child receives, the fewer problems they’ll have when they grow up. This will be crucial for the development of the rest of their skills.
Motor skills
During this stage, your baby will start developing a lot of motor skills. In the first few months, they’ll be able to hold their own head up, fixate on objects, move their arms and legs, turn around, use their arms, legs, and hands to crawl, and, eventually, they’ll be able to stand up and walk. There are many motor milestones that they’ll achieve in the first 1000 days.
Conclusion
Your baby’s first three years are crucial for their future. You’ve seen the importance of different areas of development during this stage. In addition, you learned about the important role affection and love play when it comes to good emotional development for your child.
An unstable family environment, where there isn’t enough love, can cause serious behavioral and health problems. Therefore, giving your child love during this time in their life, and all throughout their lives, is vital.
All cited sources were thoroughly reviewed by our team to ensure their quality, reliability, currency, and validity. The bibliography of this article was considered reliable and of academic or scientific accuracy.
- Panamericana de la salud, Guatemala, Centro America. (2017). Apoyando el desarrollo en la primera infancia:de la ciencia a la aplicación en gran escala. http://disde.minedu.gob.pe/handle/MINEDU/5993
